I wonder if the original nerdy computer whiz kids decided to have some fun and consequently produced computer words that sound pornographic - dongles, megabytes and blogs to name a few, or is it just that I have a dirty mind? Megabytes sound like someone with huge teeth or a tendency to vampirism - then there are all the search engines: Google, Yahoo etc. - none of them seem very normal somehow, but then what is in computer logic.
I had only just come to terms with faxing before the advent of computers and the worldwide web and even now blogging feels like sending messages up a chimney, or perhaps I am doing something wrong. However, I am proud that I have managed to get it up and running even if I struggle to get into it sometimes. Such are the lives of us dinosaurs!
Of course, now that computers have become mainstream we all hang on every word of a computer expert. My own man is pretty good - he has rebuilt and upgraded ours several times. Trouble is, like many men, he thinks I should be interested and do it as well. I am not interested and never will be - I use a computer as a tool and as far as I am concerned tools get fixed by craftsmen and I am no craftsman (or woman) for that matter.
However, as a former secretary, I could not do without a computer. I came into secretarial work rather late in life (I was about 25) and learnt on a manual typewriter; also learnt Pitman's Shorthand. I remember our shorthand tutor like it was yesterday - she used to urge us to 'pop along the line'. Anyway, my first secretarial job after qualifying as a Personal Secretary put me off for years - the bank manager I worked for dictated onto a tape, or should I say mumbled onto a tape and then said at the end of the page, 'can you put in so and so at the end of the second paragraph'. That meant retyping the whole thing! I used to stomp about a lot then, not knowing how to express my anger, even at that age. Anyway, after that job I didn't do anything secretarial for several years and when I applied for a job about 10 years on, was delighted that computers were in almost all offices. It meant I could actually enjoy typing, because of the wonder of being able to cut and paste, check spelling, re-punctuate etc. Of course, that didn't last long because I got fed up of thinking that I knew better than the person dictating to me, except when I became a medical secretary and then I knew I didn't know better than they. However, I used to improve on their English occasionally - there was one Greek doctor whose eloquence, though quaint, could have been taken the wrong way sometimes.
I am fascinated by how much children understand about computers and use them. An autistic child I knew was faster than anyone I have ever seen using a mouse. However, I still believe that computers are only as good as the person who uses them. For instance, not just any fool can discover things on Google or Yahoo - it does require you to be able to sift stuff and also to have some idea of what you are searching for and even spell it sometimes.
As for the i-books - for me they will never take over from real books. You can't lie in bed and read a computer, nor can you read computer screens as easily as the written word on paper. Also, books look nice on bookshelves and older relatives can look at them!
Some of my friends/relatives complain about the way photography has changed and I understand some of their difficulties. For instance, photos can only be shared with people who have computers and many elderly people don't and that means that unless somebody prints off the pictures of their grandchildren they will not see them. Relatives may show them on their laptops, but nothing can really replace little photo albums. I sometimes long for them myself.
